I am using Rosetta Stone and the Pimsleur Approach. While both are fun, they don’t seem to be making anything stick but stuff that not very useful. Does anyone have any resources that are structured? I would like to take a formal class, but there aren’t any available in my area.
Its easier if you
learn the phenomes, significan sounds
morpheme smallest sound that conveys meanings, ie particles in japanesse,
syntax, obvious
grammar, obvious
then you learn the vocabulary by reading and then learning interacting with others.
AJATT’s theories and instructions in general (basically as much immersion as possible in your location, and using flash cards and spaced repetition) helped me a great deal.
What also helped me is to just sit down and learn kanji, and stop thinking that it’s overwhelmingly impossible, like I’ve been told for years. It really isn’t insanely hard to learn, and I don’t mean that as an empty “you can do it!” platitude.
But I agree there’s a lot of non-committal bullshit out there if you just search Google.
Could you explain this to me some more? To me, this sounds like I would be reading without understanding.
thanks for bumping this. can anyone recommend a podcast for learning japanese? my commute would be the perfect time to work on this
100% this. Not coming from a learning Japanese background, but picking up as much Chinese as I can through the pathetic situations that brought me here. Learning these glyphs, the sounds behind them, and the meanings aren’t rocket science. It’s just not as easy as say…learning the Russian or Korean alphabets either.
But I’ve picked up more Chinese characters than I can count in 1 1/2 year in China, and have retained them, so it’s possible. Believe it or not, my reading/writing Chinese is better than my speaking Chinese.
And just learning those symbols will help you out in nearly every east Asian country. You still see Chinese characters in South Korea, if you can’t read Korean but can read Chinese characters, you can still make your way around somewhat. And of course, there’s…China. But you’ll also find them to some extent in Thailand and Vietnam, not as much as Japan/China/Korea, but they’ll be around.
Yeah I read Impress Watch (video game/tech news) daily, but my speaking is still broken. I have a feeling it might stay that way, unless I really need a reason to talk like an adult everyday.
Also, learn radicals, which probably isn’t any more difficult than learning your kanas. If you commit radicals to memory, you can look up any Chinese character or word you don’t recognize (using a smartphone that I assume everyone has already).
Random Japanese learning links:
http://honyaku.nifty.com/cs/eg-ex/lst/02007/1.htm (sentences to use when you’re out and about)
http://www.speedanki.com/cards.php?action=card (JLPT vocab)
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/ (news articles with training wheels)
Yeah and Pimsleur sucks for learning languages from my experience.
There’s a halfway decent podcast for learning Japanese, think I have a link somewhere.
Definitely not as good as the Korean podcast I’ve used, which I base my ratings of Language podcasts on, but it works.
Sent to the Internet with Smoke Signaltalk. Buy your matches and blanket in the Trading Outlet for $20 shipped. Firewood sold separately.
Yeah and Pimsleur sucks for learning languages from my experience.
There’s a halfway decent podcast for learning Japanese, think I have a link somewhere.
Definitely not as good as the Korean podcast I’ve used, which I base my ratings of Language podcasts on, but it works.
Sent to the Internet with Smoke Signaltalk. Buy your matches and blanket in the Trading Outlet for $20 shipped. Firewood sold separately.
“Language professors hate him…for his learning methods that don’t work…SRK’ers hate him for his ads”
Phenomes, your alphabet.
morphemes are words that are one syllable and carry significant meaning. (you, I, me, that. Japanese equivalents are particles, wa, to?, etc)
syntax is how sentences are built and constructed. Adjective before subject. IIRC, Japanse has the subject before the action (watashi wa…).
Grammar, punctuation etc.
Once you know this, all that’s left is practice. You don’t learn a language by reading a dictionary, you learn it by practicing. Reading is the easiest imo if you don’t have a friend that speaks fluently. Its hard at first really hard because you have to refrence a lot of things, but that’s why you start small. Supplement this with audio such as music, lectures, etc, and by writing. At least that’s how I learned what I used to know, and noticed it was easier to learn this way rather than sitting down and learning a bunch a words as they thought in high school. And IIRC, studies show that on average people only know 1000-1500 words of any given language they are proficient in.
What are your opinions on these instructions? This is the suggested order of learning that is listed.
Learn Hiragana (the Japanese “alphabet”)
Learn vocabulary (with Kanji) and grammarPractice listening, speaking, reading, and writing
Learn Katakana (the “alphabet” for foreign words)
Learn how to use various tools such as online dictionaries
Repeat steps 2 and 3 with progressively more advanced topics
I’d probably put learning Katakana before Kanji, simply because there are a finite number of them, and they’re not that hard.
Learn any language online in a social way, interacting with people native in that language:
www.livemocha.com - I learned French through this site.
I fucking hate Rosetta Stone. I think it’s racist as hell. All I see is black people having trouble with that shit.
I’m learning Japanese as of last week, and I follow the AJATT method but I also took tips from other self-instructed Japanese speakers.
First thing I’m doing right now is memorizing Hiragana until I can’t forget it, then I’m going to memorize Katakana, then after that I’m going to only practice Kanji by using this book: http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kanji-Complete-Japanese-Characters/dp/4889960759/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1356802577&sr=8-2&keywords=remembering+the+kanji
If your on XBL, there’s someone who made a series of community games that teach Japanese…“Let’s learn Japanese” Think he has like 3 parts so far…
You and me use almost the same team in KoF… Mai/King/(Yuri or Kyo)
Does anyone know how I can make my computer type in Japanese characters?